Handful of Dust
by AgeofAquitaine
Summary: John Watson is one of the last stragglers on a dying planet Earth, but his prospects look up when he meets a dashing detective who is not of his world. He might not even be human. As John and Sherlock stumble toward something like love, John must reconsider everything he believes about sentiment, sentience, and human emotion. Fusion with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
1. Prelude

A/N: Here is a rough draft of what will one day be a multi-chapter, multi-volume fusion with Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (known better as the inspiration for Blade Runner). Pining, misunderstandings, and doomed love are the rules of the game. Warnings for depression, mental illness, suicide ideation, discrimination, internalized prejudice, and other dystopian elements.

This has not been betaed or Brit-picked, but I welcome friendly constructive criticism.

* * *

><p><strong>A Prelude<strong>

What colour are your dreams, Sherlock Holmes?

Are they grey, the colour of your future, or scarlet, the colour of your past? Are they dark gold like the head that tucks under your chin every night now, whispering fervent 'forgive me's against the hollow of your throat?

Do you dream the same things over and over again? Do the endings ever change?

Do you even dream at all, or are those trembling eyelids just a cheat written into your system, a design to fool your prey into wonderment and love?

Do you ever dream of John Watson now that he can dream of nothing but you?

John needs to know because time is running out; not precisely, like the numbers on a bomb clock, but like the slip of sand through glass. He takes as much of you as he can, pressing kisses to sleeping soft curls, a mother-of-pearl cheek, the place where neck and collarbone meet, until finally…

"What, John?"

"Nothing. Sorry. Were you dreaming?"

"Oh. I suppose I was."

"What about?" John looks apprehensive. He is imagining detective dreams of blood and bodies. Or far scarier, dreams that are only made of letters and numbers, graphs and tables, scientific formulas. Binary dreams. Strings of knowledge he could never hope to understand.

You can shatter this instantly.

"Well… it was strange, John. I dreamt about oysters trying to take over the world. Millions and millions of oysters."

"What?"

"It was very concerning."

"Oh my god, you're ridiculous." John laughs and laughs and reaches up for another kiss.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_John dreams red._

_He runs, but whether to or from something, it hardly matters. The important thing is that his muscles are strong, singing with heat, aching in the good way. The ground is dusty and the rocks are rust red, vibrating with strange space life, spiny cacti and maw-worms. He runs by shattered valleys and spacious canyons that are unfathomably deep, big enough to swallow Earth's continents one by one._

_They called the planet Mars after the god of war, also the god of anger and impulsivity. The god of fucking people you shouldn't. A fool, really. A fine namesake for the planet that carries the hope of the entire human race. John runs through the human colonies, shining manmade cities built by the bravest fool of all, whoever it was that decided to put a civilization down in the middle of the amaranthine desert._

_He admires their boldness, but he carries on. Something is waiting for him out there._

_But he never finds it. The bad part of the dream starts when he can see the shapes behind the rocks. The soldiers come out of the canyons, their uniforms grey, bloodstains an inevitable black. They're pitiless. They don't listen. They tell John he's banished but they don't say why, then they pick him up from the ground and throw him into the atmosphere, past the gravitational field._

_John can't take in enough air to scream—but after the twentieth dream he doesn't try anymore. He falls backwards into space, the planet shrinking into the black. Soon it is just a small circle in the sky the color of agony, adrenaline and love, as well as feasts, tricks, tail feathers, stop lights, betrayals, and deep kisses. In a minute it will slip his vision._

**Yorkminster, 2025**

He wakes up on earth. Warm, damp sheets under his cheek and a cold pain down his leg. As always, he wakes up gasping, swallowing down air almost too gritty for human use. Harry is in the house, back from another fight with Clara, though she crept by so softly that John barely heard her come in.

His sister is in a bad way this morning. She stares out the window for ninety minutes before he thinks to check her mood organ.

"We're gonna drown in the dust out there," she tells him numbly. "We'll all be so covered with it, we'll look like stuffed animals or something. Grey fucking teddy bears"

John tries not to let this disturb him. He knows what she means—oh god, does he know—but this is still unusual behavior for Harry, who is more prone to vicious outbursts than bouts of existential angst. When John goes to program the mood organ—the little machine his sister uses to regulate her emotions—he finds a piece of dead electronics. The Penfield's dial is still set to 747 for "bemused pleasure" and… well that clearly isn't happening. He hoped he would find it malfunctioning, but all it does is confirm his fears, that he is indeed watching Harry go through emotional withdrawal. It appears the thalamic suppressants she's pumped into herself everyday are finally starting to alter her brain chemistry, the price of having instant euphoria at your fingertips.

"And you wonder why I don't have one of these," he mutters to his sister, mostly to himself. Harry is sitting at the kitchen table, her corn silk braid flowing over her left shoulder and dripping into the top of her coffee mug. She doesn't seem to notice.

Outside it is grey, as usual, and dust settles across the moors like a bed of radioactive heather. There are no birds on the wind, no trees or foliage, and only the most stubborn breeds of crabgrass still attempt to grow on the hillside. John prefers to keep the curtains closed so he doesn't have to look at the mess out there. Avoiding the things that make you uncomfortable, that was always the Watson way.

"Why don't you try going to work?" he asks his catatonic sister.

"I called in sick," she says.

"I know." John puts a gentle hand on her shoulder, plucks her hair from the coffee, and perfunctorily wrings it dry. "Listen, it'll make you feel better to go out and do something. I'll call the repair man while you're gone."

"What about the fish?"

"Yeah, I think he'll manage to survive another day in my care."

He glances up to the glass tank that houses Saucers—originally named Gladstone, for the British PM, but the dignified name never stuck. Their bright little fish is the only splash of color in their apartment. It's the most valuable possession John owns, a generous gift from an old friend, but it's Harry who clings to the pet as if it it were her child.

"Saucers and I could use some quality time," he says. "I'll take a crack at cleaning the tank, and then maybe I'll make a curry for supper."

They watch the fish swim in concentric circles, round and round and round as the flat eyes in its head. John tries to summon up tender feelings for the creature, but at the end of the day it's a fish, and he craves skin, not scales.

"I know I should go," Harry says.

"You have a job." John aims for a self-deprecating smile, but it comes out sounding queasy. "Might as well keep it."

Harry frowns at him sympathetically, her hand brushing over his. "Okay."

Once Harry is bundled out the door, John makes himself a mid-morning cup of tea and waits for the repairman to arrive. He puts on the telly, which is once again streaming a report from the colony on Mars, a feature that someone has unironically titled "All is Well on the New Frontier!".

Panoramic shots of the city scroll by, with emphatic closeups of public gardens and neo-Martian architecture. Sunset red mountains and buildings pale as bone. The sun makes an attractive lens flare on the face of the camera; it's meant to seem inviting, but it's clear from the way everyone is dressed that the climate is not so much warm as hellish-hot.

An attractive family is talking about thee benefits of their new swimming pool. "They told us that our old pool on Earth had the same PH-levels as battery acid," beams a father of three, who is noticeably sweating off his foundation. "But all the pools on Mars are clean and dust-free. Now my kids can have fun swimming without slowly killing themselves."

John's left hand starts to tremble, as it so often does around Martian propaganda. Not that he needs to be convinced; he knows very well that he lives on a dying planet. The government produces these heavy-handed advertisements to wheedle the last holdouts into evacuating Earth and joining the new colony on Mars.

A planet that had once seemed forbidding is suddenly a glittering opportunity. Mars was terraformed thirty years before World War Terminus, but at that point it was only an elite community of scientists and adventurous billionaires. After the war left Earth devastated, most of the powerful world governments set up shop on the red planet. They lured their citizens to join them with attractive incentives: cheap real estate, better health benefits, amazing new technologies, and customizable android servants to do their chores.

The general population started emigrating in the first two years after the war, but there were always going to be a few hundred thousand holdouts, stubborn people who fed on their sentimentality for home. Harry is one of those people but John, who has dreamed of visiting the colony ever since childhood, is not.

He doesn't believe in the paradise that the telly ads are selling, but he believes in the new frontier. John sees a world that is beautiful, volatile, and rich with possibility, where just living is a purpose enough. Pity he'll never get to see it.

John switches off the television and stands over Saucers's bowl. The fish was the best souvenir he took back from the war, the others being the dreams, the tremor, the limp, and the slug they tortured out of his shoulder. There was a little money too, at first, but not enough to approach the value of a living animal. He often thinks how lucky he is that someone loved him enough to give him such a gift. He wishes it were enough.

Animals are primarily considered therapeutic for humans but more than that, they are status symbols. Everyone who can afford one has a pet. A genuine fish, while not a sheep or a dog or an owl, is still a rare kind of wonder, a holdout from the pre-war days of clean rain and virgin ponds, when such animals were plentiful enough to seem boring. According to John's Sidney's animal guide, there are only a couple thousand of them left in the world.

He tosses a few flakes in the water, which drift like snow to the floor of the tank. Saucers never seems to eat them, but he's remained a remarkably healthy fish these last five years. John taps idly on the tank, the goes to make himself a cup of coffee.

It takes only forty minutes before he hears a knock at the door.

"Just a moment!" he calls, adjusting the fuzzy belt of his robe, swiping three fingers through his fringe in a small attempt to smarten up. He may be a professional house dweller these days, but appearances still matter. "Thanks for coming on such short…" His voice trails off with the swing of the door.

The man at his threshold—tall with milky blue eyes, a once-boyish face marred by age and a dramatic burn pattern running from his top-left hairline to the tan skin on his neck—is definitely not a repairman. He stares blankly at the space in front of John.

"Commander." The word catches in John's throat. He feels his shocked muscles realigning themselves out of habit, his spine straight as a baton and his chin tilted up, just slightly, craving an order. His body is prepared for anything, even as his mind still scrambles to accept what is happening. This man, right in front of him, right now.

John looks up at was once the most important face in his life, but with a sickening jolt absorbs how much has changed in them both.

"Commander Sholto. It's good to see you, sir. I didn't think…I mean, I'm surprised you found me."

The tall man doesn't answer or even react very much to the greeting. There is little going on behind his eyes.

"Would you like to come in, sir?"

"Watson…" he says flatly, as if he has just arrived at John's name but hasn't figured out what it means. His eyes flick nervously over John's shoulder. "Are they here?"

John's stomach rolls over in horror at the wrongness of that question, and at the paranoia within it. He knows all of his ex-commander's expressions and vacant fear is not one he's ever come across before. He doesn't know this man.

It's not the angry red scar, though he didn't have it when John knew him. Whatever the damage, its much deeper. In his prime, Commander Sholto had a strong, regal bearing. He used to be an oak tree, but now the man is half-collapsed into himself, his posture weak and defeated, his shoulders sinking like rotted logs.

John's lips feel numb when he asks the inevitable question. "Who do you mean, sir?"

"The fakers."

"Who?"

"The fake liars, the skins and the electro-brains. Watson, you have to watch out for them."

"Please just…come in, Sir, okay?" John takes a chance by reaching forward, putting a gentle hand on Sholto's arm to lead him into the flat. At first, he resists.

"James. Please?"

The commander follows and John's heart breaks open.

He forgets to be insecure about the state of his flat, with the boring striped wallpaper and the dishes piled up in the sink. He wonders if he's supposed to seat him on the grey corduroy sofa, offer him tea and biscuits, this guest who barely seems to remember him.

For his part, John never expected to see this man again. They'd always shared an unspoken connection, a loyalty that exceeded average soldier camaraderie, an attraction that outstripped the normal flirting and bantering in the barracks. Nothing physical, nothing tangible, just enough loaded looks and private meals and late-night meetings to make John believe—or hope—that he was more than just a favourite. But it went unconsummated for so long that John began to wonder if he'd fantasized the entire thing. When John was near death in the military hospital, Sholto never visited, but he had procured for John a gift. He learned later that his commander had already been transported off the base, recruited for a mysterious military project, never to be heard from again.

You still haven't heard from him, John thinks resentfully as he watches the diminished figure slowly ghost around his flat. Sholto stops in front of the fish tank, forcing a sad smile. He dips his fingers in the water.

"You got my gift," he says. "And you kept it."

"Of course I did." John will never forget the day he was released from the hospital with only his clothes, a bit of money, and a single message from Sholto; it wasn't a letter or a voicemail or anything that could capture his emotions, just a notice that John would be delivered a goldfish in a few weeks. John hadn't understood at the time. He was angry. But in a few months the war was over, animals were the most valuable investment in the world, and he came to acknowledge his commander's foresight, even if he resented his coldness.

"It was a beautiful gesture" he says now as Sholto swirls his fingers around the fish tank, his blue eyes glassy with delirium. "Are you okay, sir?"

Sholto shakes his head. "I didn't know. I'm sorry, John."

"Why? Are you sorry…for not keeping in contact?"

"It wasn't real. I'm sorry, but they lied to me."

John's throat constricts as he says. "Who did? I don't understand."

"Who do you think? The ones that set the fire."

Sholto's fingers wrap around Saucers, stroking the fish's vivid orange body. John doesn't know what to do. He doesn't dare move, only watches as Sholto pinches the goldfish between two strong fingers and lifts him out of the water.

The fish freezes when his little body hits the cold air. John sympathizes with the creature. He wonders if the fish eyes are so round and wide because of panic, or if they always looked that way. After a moment of shock, Saucers begins bobbing his head, gills flapping in desperation.

"James, what are you doing? I don't understand."

And with a brutal smack, Sholto crushes John's fish into the wooden tabletop.

There is no spurt of blood. The flaky orange skin peels away to reveal a skeleton made of tiny metal plates, connected by wires thin as dental floss. The robotic body twitches three times, shuddering water droplets onto the dented wood.

"See?" says Sholto. "A fake. They're everywhere."

* * *

><p>"You promised to take care of him!"<p>

"Take care of what?" John demands. "That thing wasn't real."

Without the mood organ to numb her out, Harry is left crying hysterically over the robot in her hand. John hopes it doesn't electrocute her, but then it did manage to survive five years in a water tank, the ruthless impostor. He wonders which shadowy corporation built the thing, in which neon-tinted lab. He wonders when Sholto got involved and when he decided that he wanted out.

"What do you think happened to him?" He wonders out loud, but his sister is barely listening. "The Commander was attached to a special project; a lot of people said it might have something to do with the artificial intelligence unit and he was working with androids. That would explain his involvement with robotic animals, but not why he wanted to destroy them. Whatever happened there, it was bad. I suppose someone wanted to silence him."

"I don't care," Harry says, swiping at her eyes with a napkin. "Maybe he deserved it."

"Harry. Shut up. That man was a huge part of my life and now he's a…a ghost of the man he was."

"You mean he's a special," she says coldly. "A chickenhead."

John fights against all desire to put a hole through the center of her kitchen table.

Harry rolls the napkin around the fish, a makeshift burial shroud. "You want to play detective? Fine. Maybe he saw some things he couldn't handle. Maybe he was having nightmares too, maybe his hands shook for no reason or he was having flashbacks that scared his neighbors. And then maybe he got a bad diagnosis, and the government decided to treat it by burning out a part of his brain. That's how they go, right? Your conspiracy theories?"

Her voice is like ragged linen, her pale hands rolling the napkin until it no longer resembles a creature of any kind. "Maybe he was just crazy, John. Isn't that what you're really scared of?"

* * *

><p>John, who attended four years of medical school before the war, had always considered himself broadly healthy. He was fit and well-muscled for a short man, and if he had a family history of depression and substance abuse, it hadn't yet manifested in his personality. Then he became an army doctor, a Captain in WWT, and he came out of that situation a different man. He witnessed hundreds of men bleed out under his hands, watched as the weapons became impossibly advanced, to the point where they left the bodies as gusts of nuclear ash. A bullet bit through his shoulder one day, and that was his career cut down in its prime. But by that point, he was lucky to get out.<p>

Memories flash around in his dreams, but John doesn't remember most of it. He can't tell you who he was fighting exactly, or why. Nobody can.

It all devolved so quickly. In a case of severe and collective shock, the entire world had apparently forgotten what the point of the war had been. The human raced emerged, clear-eyed at last, to see they had created a radioactive wasteland in their wake. Species of animal began to drop off one by one and eventually, if they didn't pick up their roots, the humans would as well.

John wasn't stupid. He saw the writing on the wall. He applied for transport as soon as he was released from the army hospital.

When he went down to the immigration center, he met with a stone-faced doctor who asked him a battery of questions. Notes were made about the stress tremor in his hand, the psychosomatic limp in his leg, and the general listlessness in his eyes. On reflection, he shouldn't have mentioned the nightmares. Days later, he received a letter informing him that he would not be given clearance for Mars.

John hovers in a space between worlds, the blue and the red. But that's just in his head. His body is soft now, creased into a permanent sit, because it hurts to stand. Nothing happens anymore.

There's a name for the people who fail their tests. They're called "specials". They're carefully controlled. Sometimes, in extreme cases, they're lobotomized. The criminal, physically ill, mentally ill, mentally challenged; the sociopathic, cruel, dangerous, delusional, pathetic—nothing in common but their undesirability.

* * *

><p>Dreams every night for the next week. They make his brain burn at night and feel soggy with scar tissue the next day. He imagines opening up his head and scooping out the filmy stuff, like packing material from a shipping box.<p>

John knows better than to say these things out loud. He'd lose the small amount of respectability has left. He wonders how fast it would take the neighbors to turn him in to the officials, not out of maliciousness of course, just a genuine desire to help a poor soldier cope. How they'd congratulate themselves on being empathetic people while John gets dragged to some shadow-locked clinic and tortured with a flare.

Harry he can trust, to a point. She's just cruel because she's scared, often for him; he's scared for her in return. If she dials for any more emotion, she might never produce it naturally again.

They organize a ceasefire, still sharing the kitchen nook and the television, but the atmosphere begins to thaw. One morning, over tea and digestive biscuits, Harry takes the first big step.

"I'm thinking about moving back in with Clara," she says

John's mouth drops open in disbelief.

"Please don't be upset. This isn't abandonment, I promise. I just don't think that either one of us has been particularly happy with our living arrangement anyway. I know you'll miss me…"

John has trouble concealing his unexpected joy. "So basically what you're saying is that we're breaking up, and its not me, its you."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Excuse me for trying to be supportive. You know, empathetic."

"You're showing empathy? That mood box must really be working now."

She starts to sneer…but no, that's a genuine smile she just doesn't want him to see. He doesn't think it's preprogrammed either, which gives him immense hope. When a laugh escapes her, a silly sound like a startled bird, he can't help but join in. The Watson siblings haven't laughed together for years.

He'd forgotten how good it feels to laugh like that, with his sister—with anyone.

Harry pours them both more tea, starting with herself. "I won't move out until we find you somebody new to share with. I'll ask around."

This is the opening he's been waiting, for at last. "Actually I was thinking maybe…London."

Harry blinks. "London?"

"It's not Mars, but its something."

"You know there's more crime in the cities. People live so close, you never know if there's an amoral or a psychopath on the other side of your wall."

"I know."

John has heard her country mouse rationalizations before. He's thought about this for long enough that his reasoning is crystallized in his mind, but he cannot tell her all. He can't explain that if he stays here, he will die; not just a slow-moving death-in-life, but an actual matter of ending life. He dreams of walking outside to where the dust falls thickest, balling the stuff with his fists, and shoveling it down his gullet like spun sugar. Poisoning or exposure would do him in, four days tops; better still, a friendly government agent could come to put him out of his misery. But given the choice, he doesn't want to go gently; he doesn't want to just pass away, the way old milk passes its expiration date. He would rather be weeping dynamite. It bothers him how these thoughts have become so commonplace.

He can't explain why London would be better, but it has to be. He remembers the city as it was when he was a young medical student with his whole life in front of him, when a long and healthy life still seemed an option. That city was his favorite place in the world—still is, though Earth itself is now only second best.

London used to wink at him in the morning and whisper to him at night. So many people, so close together, their characters came together to create something bigger, like a collective consciousness for the city to own. But that's mad—blasphemous, even. Cement and brick cannot hold a soul; only living things can do that. He can't say that.

"I'd have more work opportunities," he says instead. "There are a lot of people there, so they might have need of someone like me—a petsitter, maybe."

"You think they're that desperate?"

John glares at her over the rim of his cup.

"Or do you think they just won't bother to check your records?" she asks.

"I'm fit to work," he says quietly. "You know I am."

"John."

"You know I am, right?"

Harry knows better than to respond to such a loaded question. She's already deployed one old Watsonian trick, smiling neutrally as she turns her attention away from John and onto a banal activity, in this case, spooning sugar into her cup. John wants to rip the utensils from her hands.

He lays his palms on the table, lifting himself to standing position. "Right. You're worried about me, then. You. The woman who spent three days last week in a catatonic trance. And now you're going to jump back into a relationship with your ex, as if you're any more emotionally stable than you were a year ago."

Harry doesn't respond, but he can see the red flush rise in her cheeks. "Best of luck, sis."

John stands over the fish tank, now empty, that they've kept as a kind of deathless memorial, though for different reasons. When John looks at it, he thinks of Commander Sholto. He knows, somehow, that he will never see him again.

In the glass, Harry's twin image is combing through her hair with her fingers, gently pulling the scalp, as she does when she needs to mull something over in her mind.

"I'm actually glad you're finally being honest about me and Clara," she says.

"Really? Even though I just implied it was a terrible idea to move back in?"

"Actually I think you might be right about it being a terrible idea, but I'm still moving in with her. You know why? Because I love her, John. Even if it's a stupid mistake, I love her. That's what people do. Loving others is what makes us human."

John frowns at the woman in the glass, wondering if her words were meant to be a barb at him personally, if she knows more about Sholto than she lets on or if she's just noticed that he's not been on a date in months. He picks up the glass bowl and carries it to the sink, where he pours out the water. Emptied, it weighs almost nothing. He fills it with soap suds and leaves it to soak.

"I want you to promise me something," she says eventually. "When you go to London, please don't shut yourself in, okay? Don't try to live alone."

"I don't intend to," he says.

"And I know you won't buy a mood organ, but try to be happy, okay? Or at least, if you're not happy, pretend that you are."

"Why should I pretend?"

"Because people are supposed to be happy. I don't want them to realize there's something wrong with you."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 3**

John disembarks in Victoria Station and steps into an alien city.

He recognizes her old bones, that Georgian geometry plotted in the 1800s, streets which would become his playground centuries later when John was a young med student at Bart's. London is still a great city, a graceful city, but the war broke her in places and she healed up wrong.

Most of the old limestone houses are crushed and faded in places; the modern glass buildings didn't survive at all. Monuments that were cleaned in the socially-conscious 1990s are cloaked in soot, dark gothic wonders once more. Parliament looks grim, a garden of tall black spires around the crow-colored hulk that is Big Ben. The sky is darker, too, than it was in Yorkshire, fading from dove grey mornings to charcoal afternoons. Airships move like whales, 100-feet across, their underbellies plastered with bright neon advertisements. They play all night, every night.

John ignores Harry's advice to stay indoors and lets himself wander for a while. The nuclear fallout is technically worse over the city than in the country, but it has a less oppressive effect on John's psyche. That probably has something to do with the human traffic, the sense of determination he sees in the face of a woman waiting for a taxi in Picadilly, an old couple bickering under the Marble Arch, even an old man slurping noodles from a streetcart. These ordinary people going about their lives are slowly dying, and for that they seem more alive.

By the late afternoon, John considers he may have overdone his adventure, because his leg aches, he's tired, and he still hasn't found a place to stay. He could claim one of the many abandoned flats in posh Mayfair or Belgravia, but without a weapon he is open to attack from thieves, or worse. Buckingham Palace is supposedly crawling with gangsters, gamblers, and black market dealers, the new heart of the criminal underworld. That danger is tempting in its own way, maybe more so than the palace itself, but not for tonight. A cheap hotel will have to do.

John resigns himself to stop at the next halfway decent lodging he sees. He's walking past the once-grand Criterion when he thinks he hears his name on the air.

A group of people are lounging under the old restaurant's veranda, protected in part from the dusty fallout, but far enough outside to enjoy the semi-sunshine of the afternoon. A quick survey of the faces reveals one familiar, if slightly rounder, old friend.

"Watson? John Watson! Probably don't remember me but I'm…."

"Mike Stamford. How could I forget?" John is pulled into an ungainly hug. He's jolted onto his left leg, which is starting to feel like a chewed possible stick.

"Gosh, mate, the last I heard about you was you were fighting in WWT."

"Well, yeah. I didn't do much fighting though, mostly medicine."

"I thought that maybe you were…you know."

John winces. "No, not for a lack of trying..."

He's surprised how awkward this feels. It's not just Mike Stamford, who always had an endearing habit of sticking his foot in his mouth, but the reunion concept in general. It's the sense of meeting someone who has changed so little, when John can barely remember who he is supposed to be. And worse, Mike doesn't seem to notice. He congratulates John heartily on not being dead, and then brings up an album's worth of memories, talking about exams and rugby games as if they took place last week, as if John is the same man who used to laugh and drink five pints on a Saturday night.

So he's one of those people, John realizes, as Mike launches into a story about someone called Rita that John once got off with, a woman he's pretty sure died in 2016. He's fixated on the past, living in complete denial that the world has changed. John suddenly feels better about his own coping strategies…and that is embarrassing for everyone involved.

Before John can try to shake him, Mike asks "So, you have a place to stay, right?"

And then John remembers that Mike knows everyone, always has. "Actually, I am looking for a place to stay," he says. "Do you know anybody who needs a flatmate?"

Mike's eyes widen in surprise. "You know, you're the second person to say that to me today."

"Right. Who was the first?"

The words don't feel that fateful in his mouth...

* * *

><p>A thin, dark-haired man is tentatively shaking John's hand. "So, John, is it? What kind of animal have you got?"<p>

That's a blunt opening line, but John takes it in his stride. He conjures up a self-deprecating smile. "I'm actually without an animal at the moment. Just temporarily, you know. I've got almost enough saved up for a duck or a goose…" The man's little eyes give John a glance-over, the standard check against sociopaths and other immoral types. John chooses not to be offended and carries on. "I had a fish but…well, it died.

"I have a goat. She's two years old, practically mint. I suppose I'd be expected to share."

"What? No, of course not."

"Not that I'm not good at sharing, or anything. I mean…I'm a very generous person."

John is going to kill Mike for arranging this meeting. He shifts on his cane to find a more comfortable position, and then worries the movement will make him appear more nervous. Behind the other man's head there are dozens of cops milling around, looking mostly harmless with coffee cups and armfuls of paperwork. John wishes they didn't make him feel so uneasy, but they do. He can barely see their faces for their uniforms.

A woman in plainclothes leans against a nearby desk, idly applying chapstick and smiling to herself. She looks tired but triumphant, the kind of exhaustion that comes after a hard day's work. The thought of it makes John's heart spark with jealousy.

When he smiles at her, the woman smiles back and starts to move in their direction. "Phillip, who's your friend?" she asks. She has very tight dark curls and straight, skeptical eyebrows.

John's companion jumps like a shy cat when she comes near him "This is John Watson, my new flatmate," he says quickly. "Mike Stamford introduced us."

John raises his arm to shake her hand, then just as suddenly drops it back to his side. "We aren't flatmates yet. We really haven't decided anything."

"John, this is Sergeant Sally Donovan."

Donovan nods at John politely, but her expression for Philip Anderson is bitterly cynical and carefully restrained. Whatever he did to piss her off, John doesn't want any part of it. "That was fast," she says cooly.

"What was fast?"

"Well, I thought you and the Mrs. Anderson were going to give it another go. Or did she just throw you straight out again?"

"That's not what happened," Anderson whines. "It was mutual this time. I decided that I needed to be on my own for a while so that I could devote myself to my pre-crime studies."

"Oh yeah? How is that going?"

"It's going fine! I'm making lots of headway in the theoretical work and I tell you, once I find an actual precog, crime as we know it will cease to exist…"

"Right, the psychics," she says drily. "Why don't you just use the freak we already have?"

"They're not psychics, Sally! Babies with precognitive powers are being born every day in secret. If we harnessed that power, maybe through a computer…"

"This is ridiculous."

John makes quick work of looking disinterested. He has no idea what they're talking about, plus he has his own emotional wars; he's hardly going to become a pawn in somebody else's. He checks his phone for messages—of course, there are none—then moves on to a game of Galaga. He tries to pretend his left hand isn't trembling, but he first noticed it ten minutes ago. His fingers falter on the keys.

London, John thinks, has been a grand disappointment. Here he stands in the heart of what was once his favorite city in the world, and it feels just as dead as everywhere else on the planet. He wonders if this is a sign that the history of the world truly has run its course. Other planets will form and shift around them but Earth will spin slower in its orbit until it halts, unnoticed, maybe a little relieved to be forgotten. The cops in New Scotland Yard will drink their coffee, Anderson and Donovan will snipe at each other, and John will be forever fighting pretend aliens on his phone, trapped in the center of an empty moment.

But it isn't Terminus, not yet. The tableau falls apart when somebody new starts speaking.

"Donovan, can I borrow your phone? Dimmock's confiscated mine."

John's first impression of the stranger is that he is sharp-looking, a ballpoint sketch in a world of pencil. Immaculate black suit, smirk like the edge of a kitchen knife.

Donovan regards him as if he has just asked to borrow one of her kidneys. "What do you want with it?"

The stranger ignores her question and turns to John. "Yours, then. Not the newest model but it will do."

John's hand tightens unconsciously around his device, currently the most valuable possession he has. The fake aliens are still making embarrassing electronic burbling noises.

"It's for a case." In a gesture of good faith, the stranger removes one of his gloves and stretches out a long, white hand. "Lives hang in the balance. We are, as it happens, trying to catch a serial killer."

The man is tall and thin with a dark curls and a powder-white face. His eyes are the most off-putting thing about him—very pale, anodic, as if they hold some trace gravitation. Some might find his pulling gaze intrusive, but John, who has been falling backward for years, feels instantly stabilized.

"A serial killer?" snorts Anderson. "I've told you before, it's a string of suicides."

"Why would four unrelated people all kill themselves in the exact same manner? Suicide pact?"

Donovan exchanges a dark glance with Anderson. "It's not uncommon these days. Some people find it difficult cope, maybe they have a moment of doubt…"

"Wrong!" the stranger shouts. "Where would the victims have gotten the poison? It's a rare type, not even found on this planet! Even you lot should have gotten somewhere with that! Idiots."

The real mystery, from John's perspective, is who this man is that he can elicit such powerful reactions from Anderson and Donovan. Anderson's face looks crumpled and sour—though, to be fair, he looked like that before the stranger arrived. But Donovan is tight as a wire. Her pupils are blown wide, like those of a rabbit facing a predator. The warmth, teasing, and sarcasm has leached out of her face and she looks like she might throw up if the strange man touches her.

The stranger notices this too. He shifts his weight to the front of his tapered shoes, bringing his face an inch closer to Donovan's. She flinches, just barely. It's enough to bring a grim smile to the stranger's face.

"I don't care if Lestrade called you or not," she says, through gritted teeth. "We don't need you on this case."

"Don't you? People will die."

"That's what I'm worried about, Freak. Now fuck off."

They glare at each other, locked in stalemate. John first instinct is to leap to Sally Donovan's defense, but he stops because she looks quite capable of taking care of herself, and would probably resent the imposition. And then there's the stranger's expression.

The steep, icy planes of is face cannot hide everything. He doesn't look hurt at being told to go fuck off but he looks resigned, that place you go when 'hurt' at last gets boring. John recognizes this as his average state of being.

Finally, he breaks the uncomfortable silence by holding out his phone to the man. "John Watson," he says by way of introduction. "Here you go."

"Oh." The stranger doesn't take it at first, simply stares at John with that unnerving color. "Sherlock Holmes. Consulting detective."

"You're welcome," says John, apropos of nothing. "Wait I forgot to unlock it."

But Sherlock Holmes has already taken the phone from his hand and casually typed in the secret password.

Anderson gasps in amazement and terror while Donovan narrows her eyes in contempt. John's throat feels very tight in the face of this new threat, whatever it is.

"How do you know my password?" he asks.

A great, put-upon sigh. "I didn't know, I noticed."

"Oh yeah?"

Sherlock Holmes shakes his curly head in exasperation, but he doesn't make a move to return the phone. Beneath his bluster, he appears to be the most irritated with himself. "I'm not a government spy, if that's what you're worried about."

"What are you then?" John feels Sally tugging lightly at his elbow, but John can't let this go. "No, seriously. I want to know."

"I doubt it."

John refuses to break eye contact. He's been in loads of staring contests, as a schoolboy, and even sometimes as a soldier when he had to pull rank, but none them ever felt this…charged.

The other man is over a head taller than him. He looms like a young ash tree, which is almost intimidating. But Sherlock Holmes doesn't really want to win. John can see the knowledge bubbling up inside of him.

"Fine," Sherlock concedes. "You're an army doctor who was invalided home from The War. You were stationed on the ground—never saw anything beyond Earth and probably never will and since then you've been living with your alcoholic brother. This phone was his before he gave it to you, but the relationship is strained. You're unmarried—lack of a wedding ring, and you haven't had sex in the recent past. Sexually frustrated. Lack of animal hair on your clothing indicates that you don't have an animal, at least not a large mammal of the type that people actually care about. You're not a religious man either, because you clearly don't take part in any self-flagellation like the really hardcore Mercerists. And you're clearly unemployed, because no smallminded Earth company is going to hire someone with documented psychosomatic issues. In summation, you're an earthbound soldier whose lost his calling, with no status symbols, no relationships, nothing to anchor him to this planet. You hate it here. Conclusion: your unimaginative password is M-A-R-S."

Blood drains from his brain in shock. He's dimly aware of a bristling Donovan moving in front of him in a gesture of protection.. "Oi, freak, leave him alone."

She doesn't know him, which is why she doesn't know that John Watson can take care of himself. "That was amazing," he says.

Sherlock's dark head was angled downward, like a dog wary of being physically attacked, but at John's words he snaps up in surprise. "Amazing," he repeats softly.

Sally looks scandalized, betrayed even. Suddenly everyone is looking at him and John wishes that he hadn't said anything at all, but it really was amazing. "I mean, it was all pretty rude. And I really didn't appreciate the commentary on my sex life, but the rest of it was completely true. Well, almost completely true," he says, thinking of the decidedly female Harry.

Sherlock Holmes appears dumbfounded. He's staring at John as if he has been the one to say something extraordinarily strange. He takes a step forward, right into John's personal bubble of space. His eyes start moving very fast, sweeping up and down John's body like a speed-reader scanning a precious document, like John has important information written in his skin. He raises his eyebrow as if John has given away something surprising.

He steps back again, satisfied with his work, and gives the barest hint of a smile. A smile isn't something John was expecting to see on the sculpted face, but it makes the man look ten years younger.

And then, "Wait, what do you mean, _almost_?"

* * *

><p>"What's the problem, guys?"<p>

Everyone jumps at the voice of the Detective Inspector, the man with the tired face has who just snuck up on their group.

"Sorry, sir," says Anderson. "We were just…dealing with something." He and Sally are not impressed by whatever just happened, but John still feels staggered.

"Well wrap it up. We've just got a huge case on."

For a higher-up on the police force, he is surprisingly kind-faced. Despite the thick silver hair, he looks like he had once been boyish, but lost that quality years back. Five years of heavy dust and sleepless nights will do that to a person.

John wonders skeptically if this man could really be a policeman. When he imagines the secret police that would have carted Sholto away, but this is not the face he pictures.

The DI smiles at him. "Who's this, then?"

"This is John, Anderson's new flatmate," says Sally, who instantly relaxes, as if the inspector's presence gives her confidence. "The freak is trying to terrorize him."

"I'm not his flatmate," John protests, but nobody pays him any attention.

"Greg Lestrade. Nice to meet you." The DI nods in Sherlock's direction. "You mind if I borrow him for a minute?"

"Please," says Sally. "And while you're at it, I would consider borrowing a bone marrow sample. It's about time he got tested."

John knows a parting shot when he hears one, and from the way that everyone stiffens, her comment clearly hit home.

"I was simply analyzing the crime scene," says Sherlock tightly. "

"He called it elegant," says Anderson.

Sherlock's lips curl slightly in defiance, but beyond that, his pale face is shut down. Whatever rapid-fire thoughts are moving in his brain, he is biting them back. His eyes float to John, just for a moment, as if to gauge his reaction to their conversation, but John doesn't understand enough of what they're talking about to give anything away.

Lestrade looks grimly from Donovan to Sherlock, his mouth tucked in a thin line. "Sally, we've been over this," he says steadily. "Sherlock is here for the same reason we are, to save people's lives. He doesn't need to prove anything."

"Why not?" she asks. "He should agree to the test if he has nothing to hide."

"We're just saying it's suspicious," says Anderson.

"And better safe than sorry. Because if he isn't human and he does decide to burn down this department, that will be down to you, sir." At his look, she starts to backtrack. "I mean, it will be down to all of us. It's our job to protect people, and that includes our own department."

"No," Lestrade barks, suddenly stern. "No, we aren't doing this today. Do you want to solve these deaths or stand around questioning my personal judgment?"

Everyone falls silent. Sherlock is so still. It's like he's not even a factor in the conversation anymore, even as it revolves around him. John suddenly feels very out of place in this moment. He doesn't want to watch this. "You know I should…It's getting late."

"Right," says Anderson. "I'll show you out."

John nods gratefully. He takes one more look at the two police officers and the dangerous, mysterious man in black. They don't seem to notice when he leaves.

"Sorry you had to see that," Anderson says as he walks John down the hall. "That's been coming for a long time now."

"So who is he? A criminal?"

"Maybe," says Anderson thoughtfully. "Sally thinks that Holmes is a criminal, but I think it might be some sort of test."

John frowns. "What is? What's a test?"

"The great Sherlock Holmes," says Anderson in a stage whisper. "That's the test. It's kind of amazing, isn't it? Almost perfect, almost lifelike, but just inhuman enough to give you the chills. I sensed it right away but some people don't have that gift."

John sighs, his patience for the man wearing thin. "I'm still not getting it."

"You really don't know."

"No! Just tell me who that man is."

"It isn't a man, Watson" says Anderson, his voice almost dripping with delight. "It's an android."

John stops in his tracks, startled. He laughs. Anderson should be laughing too, but he's just drinking in John's reaction.

"You're joking."

"I'm not!"

"What? How is he an android?" He doesn't know why, but to his own ears he sounds a bit angry. Part of his understanding of the world shifts, but the new fit is jarring and uncomfortable.

"It's so obvious! With that elegant design, the way it moves, the way it speaks…but most importantly, androids aren't capable of emotions or morals. And well, you saw Sherlock in action, didn't you?"

John thinks back to every story he has ever heard about androids, to every commercial he has ever seen. He never got a chance to see one in the flesh, but even on the telly he could sense there was something wrong with them. Even when they looked completely human, there was a shallowness to their eyes, an artificiality to the way held themselves and moved their limbs and turned their heads. He had never wanted to own one for himself.

There's just no way. Even if the Rosen corporation had managed to create a perfect working replica of the human body and market it to the masses, they weren't in the business of creating _people._ No technology in the world could shape an actual human mind with personality, creativity, vitality, humor, emotions, and whatever else made up a person's soul. And Sherlock Holmes…in their five minutes together, John had certainly found him unworldly and strange, but he had seemed recognizably alive.

An alien? Possibly. An android? No.

"If he's an android," John begins shakily, "then what is he doing here? I thought androids were illegal on Earth. And he was acting like a free man."

"That's exactly the problem," says Anderson. "Holmes is so clever, so advanced, that nobody can prove it isn't human. It passes every personality test, under the condition that it's a human with empathy issues, which is what everyone wants to believe anyway. It even claims to have a brother in the Martian government that will provide it with protection! The thing is a master manipulator! It's fooled dozens of people, even Lestrade. That's why I think it isn't an escapee at all but a test from the Martian government, like a Trojan Horse. You know, to keep us on our toes."

The way Anderson is talking about this, John feels he may have hit upon a pet obsession, a favorite conversation the man has had over and over again. He isn't sure if this should make him more or less credible.

"Sergeant Donovan said something about a bone marrow test?"

"Bone marrow testing is the only definitive way to distinguish between an android and a human, besides dissection after death, of course. It's foolproof, but Lestrade won't order one."

"He believes Holmes is human," John says hopefully.

Anderson sighs. "I think he wants Holmes to be human, so he can keep using the brain to solve difficult cases."

"Or maybe he's right."

"Or maybe he's just covering himself. If Lestrade orders a test and it came back negative—which it won't, but if it did—he'd probably lose his job."

"I think he'd lose his job either way, would't he? Can't just have an android hanging around. Those things are…well I hear they can be vicious."

"They are." Anderson suddenly looks very serious, the feverish excitement ebbing. He pushes through the door, leading John outside into the cold dusk, and drops his voice low. "Don't bring up this conversation to Sally, alright? She has a thing about androids."

"Doesn't everyone?" asks John.

"Her especially. They're very dangerous creatures, you know, especially when they go bad. They've hurt a lot of people on this planet. But anyway, I really can't say any more."

John thinks he's probably said far more than he was supposed to; not nearly enough to satisfy John's many questions, but still enough to get them both into trouble. John shouldn't get involved in some weird conspiracy theory. And he still isn't sure that he even believes Anderson's theories.

One glance should be enough to know, shouldn't it? That moment when John said "Amazing" and Sherlock Holmes looked at him, that was it. Or it was something. Or he's making too much of nothing.

He's just upset because if Holmes really was just a computer brain in a meat suit that was transmitting fake signs of life, and John didn't pick up on that, he should be disappointed in himself both as a doctor and a human being.

* * *

><p>John catches a taxi just out of Scotland Yard, one of the classic black cabs that was a staple of pre-war London. He took one with his family once, when they had all gone to the city for the first time, and the driver had pointed out the sites to him in a genial cockney accent. The thought makes him a little sad now, so he's grateful that this driver makes no attempt at smalltalk.<p>

"4257 Oldacre Road," he says, reluctantly repeating the address Anderson gave him for the flat. Their flat, if he should want it to be. He doesn't relish the chance to live with Philip Anderson, but John will take what he can get, at least for now.

After only five minutes of driving, the cab rolls to a stop in front of a dilapidated double-building that looks nothing like the place Anderson described to him. They aren't even on Oldacre Road.

The intuitive hairs on the back of his neck are just starting to prickle as the cabbie steps out of the driver's seat and walks over to John's side of the car.

John registers a gun in his face, and then the hairs light up like roman candles.

"Get out of the car, sir, and come with me." The gunman is downright cheerful about it, which makes it worse. He does, as it turns out, have a cockney accent too.

Now that John can see him clearly, the cabbie appears as an ordinary, white-haired, rabbit-like man. But his eyes are like bullets and John knows. This is what lack of humanity looks like, the void that he had apparently missed before. This face is utterly wrong.

John's hand goes instinctively to his pocket, but his phone isn't there.

Fuck. He had forgotten to ask that man Holmes to return it. His phone is with a madman in Scotland Yard and John is without any weapon or source of communication.

"Come on," the cabbie wheedles. "Do I have to explain what happens if you don't follow me?"

John shivers. He knows that this is the point where many victims would resort to begging, telling their life story in an attempt to play on the gunman's empathy. But John has seen enough human-on-human cruelty to know that the strategy is bullshit. And anyway, he isn't dealing with a human, but a machine.

He goes quietly. The building is entirely abandoned, as expected, except for the two of them. The cabbie leads him into a flourescent-lit room that is probably a classroom. It reminds him of the immigration test center and the therapist with her shiny beads.

By the time John is seated across from the killer machine, two pill bottles on the table in front of him and a gun pointed at his temple, a thought pops into his head that hasn't occurred to him since the war: He wants to live.

_Please, God, let me live._


End file.
